SAN CLEMENTE -(CA)- Brooke Bedard of San Clemente knows firsthand what Relay For Life is all about. She remembers five years ago, when she was 13, arriving home from Shorecliffs Middle School in San Clemente with a numb arm and a bad headache.

She was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A week later, she had a room at CHOC Children’s hospital getting chemotherapy and worrying about losing her hair. Chemo and radiation treatments took down the tumor wrapped around her trachea, and now, at 18, she’ll be studying business marketing at Chico State University in the fall.

In the meantime, she was captain of the “All Night for the Fight” team at this weekend’s San Clemente Relay For Life, an annual fundraising walk/run for the American Cancer Society in which members of teams take turns traveling the track at San Clemente High School’s Thalassa Stadium for 24 hours to raise pledges from donors. It’s one of many such events held around the country each year.

The teams spent Saturday morning before the event setting up themed “campsites,” illustrating, honoring and remembering those who have cancer, survived it or succumbed to it. There were crafts, live music and games such as “Ta Ta Toss,” a breast-cancer-awareness activity in which participants could make a “basket” by throwing ping-pong balls into decorated bras mounted on a board.

Greg Roberts of San Clemente Presbyterian Church‘s “Stampeding for a Cure” team, honoring 5-year-old cancer patient Taylor Uresti, said the team’s focus is to provide emotional support not only for people with cancer but for their families as well.

It doesn't look like 30 miles, but that's what the odometer says...

“When we get tired (during the relay), we can rest,” Roberts said. “Families with cancer are battling 24/7. We’re out to support each other.”

Shea Weber of Dewey Weber Surfboards in San Clemente remembers how Japanese surfer Shu Oikawa, who died in 2007 at age 40 from stomach cancer, would bow before contests with his hands together and in a very serious tone exclaim, “I will defeat you.” Then he would break into a big smile and laugh.

“Shu loved the ocean and surfing,” Weber said. “Language and culture were no barrier for him in sharing that love.”

That's Shu in the photo...

Jessica Forino, 18, a 2011 graduate of Aliso Niguel High School, helped organize members of Aliso Niguel’s girls cross country team for the Relay For Life. The event’s motto, “Celebrate, remember and fight back,” is a good description of what a cancer patient’s life is like, she said. It’s even comparable to her team’s experience during the 24 hours of the relay, she added.

“Every part of the day is a different emotion,” Forino said. “We are all together walking the track, sharing, living our lives together. At the end of the day, it’s dark, and with the (traditional) candlelight vigil, we remember, we have tears, and tomorrow, when the sun comes up, we go back to the fight.”

There is always something to do.

For Bedard, though she’s won several battles, the war isn’t over yet. She still has the little tattoos used to register the radiation machines, and she goes for check-ups about every four months. Bedard looks forward to when the check-ups will be once a year. To her, hospitals represent a form of imprisonment.

“You have to know you’re going to get through it,” she said. “I appreciate everything now. I remember I came back to school with a wig, but looks don’t matter. It’s what’s inside.”